Beijing Police Block Lawyers, Control Teenage Son of Recently Detained Lawyer Yu Wensheng, Source Says

Chinese lawyer Yu Wensheng in Beijing, China, on Jan. 12, 2017. Fred Dufour/AFP/Getty Images

Chinese human rights lawyer Yu Wensheng and his wife Xu Yan were detained by police on April 13 on their way to the embassy of the European Union (EU) in Beijing. Independent lawyers attempted to approach Yu’s family for power of attorney, only to find Yu’s 18-year-old son was under police control in the family’s home, a source has told The Epoch Times.

The Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times learned from the source on April 17 that two independent lawyers wanted to represent Yu and his wife to defend their rights.

On Apr. 16, the lawyers—Song Yusheng and Peng Jian—visited Yu’s home in Mengtougou District, Beijing, to have Yu’s son sign the power of attorney so they could take up his parents’ case, but police blocked them, the source said.

When Song and Peng arrived at Yu’s home, they found two police officers standing at the gate of Yu’s residence. Two more officers—one in plainclothes, who claimed his name to be Lu Kai, and the other in uniform—stood by each side of Yu’s son in the home.

Lu Kai told the two lawyers that Yu didn’t want to hire any lawyer and that his wife had already hired two lawyers.

“It is very likely that Xu Yan has no lawyer at all. [What Lu Kai said] is a lie,” a Chinese lawyer told the Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times on April 18, speaking anonymously for safety reasons.

Xu Yan, wife of human rights lawyer Yu Wensheng, holds a piece of paper that reads "I want to request a meeting with Judge Liu Mingwei" and a picture of her then-detained husband outside the Xuzhou Intermediate Peoples Court in Xuzhou, China, on Oct. 31, 2019. Nicolas Asfouri/AFP via Getty Images

Denying Legal Counsel

China’s rubberstamp legislature allows a detainee to hire a maximum of two lawyers to represent them. In reality, however, communist authorities and police use various tactics to prevent lawyer-client meetings and even threaten independent lawyers with disbarment.

According to Safeguard Defenders, a human rights NGO, the regime uses a “multitude of ways” to “deny suspects access to independent legal counsel.” These include “forcing detainees to fire their own lawyers and accept state-appointed counsel, threatening lawyers with the cancelation or revocation of their license if they take on sensitive cases, to using illegitimate excuses to prevent lawyer-client meetings at the detention center doors.”

The Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times reached out to the lawyers, Song and Peng, but did not receive a reply as of publication.

The Epoch Times learned from a source that seven police went to Yu’s home on the evening of April 15 and read to his son a notice that Yu and his wife had been arrested. The police also removed personal belongings from Yu’s residence without presenting any official documents.

Yu and his wife were taken away by Beijing police from a subway station in Beijing on April 13 while on their way to meet a EU delegation at the union’s embassy.

Local police notified Yu’s son on April 15 that his parents have both been detained for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” a common charge under Article 293 of China’s Criminal Law that the regime uses to target critics.

A friend of Yu’s told the Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times on Saturday that the couple must have their own independent lawyers and the son should be cared for by families or friends.

Yu was imprisoned in 2018 for four years for “inciting subversion of state power” after he sought to call for constitutional change in China. He was released in 2022 after serving the full sentence of imprisonment.

In 2014, Yu was detained for 99 days, denied access to lawyers, and severely tortured in the detention center.

Hong Ning contributed to this report.